Lubricate a sticky windlass - help please

[CharlesM]

Hello All - I managed to get my windlass working, but now I need to lubricate the gears (oil) and also decrease the friction of the rope drum when letting the anchor chain free drop.

Can anyone please tell me what oil to use?

Also, the windlass is up-only, so I need to loosen a nut to let the anchor free drop. The problem is that I need to manually lever the rope drum away from the gypsey in order to let it go. Do I lubricate this break drum with something like disk break lubricant, or do I need to do something else?

Thanks
Charles

 

[samwise]

It would help to know what sort of windlass you have. Some types, like the Lofrans Royal are luibricated for life. On the face of what you have said, it would appear to be a problem with the mechanics that may need a bit more than a drop of oil to fix

 

[jimbaerselman]

Assuming you have an electric winch . . . With most winches the gears are sealed with waterproof grease inside the gear chamber - sometimes teflon based.

If your drum needs to be levered out to be dis-engaged, there's almost certainly a lot of dried up gunge and salt deposits jamming its movement. It should be easy to remove the whole drum, clean the spindle, keyways and cones, and re-assemble with a light coat of waterproof or teflon based grease. For me, this was an annual job.